


Severance

by Skylar_Matthews



Series: Dark Praxus [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23953060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylar_Matthews/pseuds/Skylar_Matthews
Summary: Jazz was just starting to come back into himself after the incident in Praxus and has now fallen into a whole new mess.
Series: Dark Praxus [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/213866
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Severance

**Author's Note:**

> So this is long overdue and was meant to come out at the same time as the latest interlude for The Flaw in Every Crystal (back in November) but I was an idiot and never even pulled it out of Discord until an hour ago. Oops. Hopefully this helps illuminate Jazz's experiences during the time between arcs 4 and 5, or at least suggests what they would have been like a bit more thoroughly than was mentioned in the proper story.
> 
> Sorry all!  
> ~Skylar

Jazz onlined disoriented and processor fuzzy. Even with the confusion he was quick to act, starting a scan of his systems the nanoklik he onlined his optics; immediately searching for visual cues of what had happened to him.

This.... where?

"Where am I?" The mech voiced his confusion as he looked around. A white room replaced the sidewalk he last remembered being on. At least whoever had brought him there was nice enough to provide a chair, but it was too bad they thought it necessary to chain him to it. And that was all there was to examine in that room.

There were voices beyond where he could see but a bit of dialing up his senses let Jazz catch their words.

“...awake already. He’s better than some have brought in.”

“Will he be good enough?”

“That’s not my problem. You know what you have to do.”

Silence followed save for the muffled steps of a mech walking away. Then came the sound of a door opening and a patch of the wall slid away to reveal...

Nothing.

There was no one there.

The door slid closed again and the room was silent. At least until a smooth voice spoke from behind Jazz. “Well, what do we have here?”

Jazz's doorwings shot down instantly In angry/defensive. His scan finished just as the unknown mech spoke, so Jazz ran it again. Either he was dealing with an invisible mech, or his captors had tampered with his visuals. One of those was a lot more possible than the other.

As much as he realized it would be for the best to play nice with his captors -something he had already learned the hard way once- he also knew he probably would be granted a small amount of lenience for behavior in the beginning of his capture and he was fully going to take advantage of that.

"Are you fragging kidding me‽" his voice raised with every word until he was loud enough to hurt his own wingsensors. "Who the pit are you, why am I here, and who do I have to kill to get out?" He had been forced to finish nearly half his sentence on his side after struggling enough to knock his chair over, however that hadn't managed to diminish the amount of malice in his words.

A mech with mostly blue pedes and legs stepped around from behind the fallen chair and the only emotion Jazz could feel in his field was amusement. Somehow the amusement carried into his voice while his tone also remained utterly flat. “Well yes, that is the general idea.”

Jazz had been prepared for anger, or may be even being ignored, he hadn't anticipated amusement. It was a bit unnerving, but nothing too far from what he had been through before. "So what do you want? I ain't worth nothing if yer asking for credits. Also I'm not joining yer gang, and you certainly got the wrong mech if ya think you can get credits outta making me into a pleasure bot."

“And what exactly gives you the impression that I desire any of that?” the unknown mech asked. Now his field and tone were both completely blank. “Or that you would be given any option to refuse my plans for you?”

"I don't expect you to give me anything." Jazz started, glaring at his captor. "I also doubt you're gonna be able to do much if I try to take another option by force." He finally revealed the point of all his wiggling as the chains fell off his frame. He was up in an instant before picking up the chair. "Now give me one good reason I shouldn't beat ya to death with this thing?"

His captor’s expression twitched slightly as his calm mask slipped for a moment and there was a flash of surprise in his field. The most telling though was the half step back that he took before catching himself. Then he smirked. “It seems fortune has smiled on me with you.”

Jazz couldn't stop the small, "huh?" that came from him, caught off guard for just a moment before reminding himself that it didn't matter. The only thing he needed to care about was escaping. He followed the stranger's step, closing the gap between them and aiming to bring the chair down on his helm. Maybe if his captor survived he would bother with more questions.

One moment the mech was standing still and in the next he ducked and darted at Jazz. He hit a few points in Jazz’s arm and spun out from beneath the chair as it clattered to the ground. After he stopped behind Jazz, calm and collected again. “Your survival chances will be optimal if I am not the one you murder.”

The visored mech stilled for a moment, horrifying realization dawning upon him. "Fine." He didn't bother to look at his captor as he spoke. "Explain everything and I'll stop trying to kill you, deal?"

“Finally,” the blue and white mech said with a huff. “Now, you will right that chair so it can be utilized in a civilized manner and I will share as much as I can.”

Jazz gave a huff before following directions, though purposefully facing the chair the wrong way so he could sit backwards on it just to test his captor out in a subtle way.

The mech huffed again but said nothing about Jazz’s choice. “There are going to be a myriad of challenges thrown your way and you must best each of them to survive. That is all you truly need to know. I will also tell you that you will be tested in ways you can not yet comprehend. In some ways you are arguably my representative but neither that fact nor I myself will prevent you from being offlined if you can not prove yourself.”

"I can't help but feel that ya missed a lot of information. Fer one, why? Two, who's doing all this? Who the slag are you even?" Jazz demanded. He was running low on patience and high on irritation. "This ain't exactly explaining everything, or making me wanna beat ya ta death with a chair any less."

"You mean the chair you refuse to use like a civilized mech?”

"That wasn't the direction. You just told me ta pick it up so it could be, not that I had ta be the one sitting in it right." He gave the smallest hint of a grin at his own reply.

The mech gave another irritate huff. “I also did not tell you to sit in it at all.”

Jazz wordlessly stood up before kicking the chair at the other mech. "Better?"

He sidestepped it easily. “Perhaps I should amend my earlier statement. You could only be a fortune from Unicron.”

"Oh sorry, am I supposed to be nice to you after you kidnapped me? Where are my manners?" So much for trying to get information by playing nice.

“You would do well not to remember them once I leave you here,” his captor stated. “Once I walk out that door, you will awaken in a testing facility and your obvious goal is to survive until the end. There might be an exit and there might be a time limit. I do not know; it changes every time. If you fail that test, you will be offlined. As you shall if you fail any of the others. And no, I do not have any idea what those are. I just know there will be several.”

"Why?" Jazz was asking both the mech in the room and the universe, wondering why his luck was so terrible that he would end up kidnapped the moment he tried to take control of his life again.

“Only the best can be employed by my bosses and only those trusted to be in their employ can leave this facility.”

"I thought you said this wasn't a gang. Sounds a lot like a gang."

“No,” the stranger said. “It is merely a non-negotiable job opportunity. I am going to take my leave now. You clearly care nothing for my words and I only have a passing interest in whether you survive or not. Good orn to you.”

And then Jazz’s captor started to glide towards the far wall.

"One more question. Why me? Was it just chance?" He didn't expect an answer, but asked anyway.

The other mech paused as he reached the wall and glanced back at Jazz as a section slid away. “What else would it be?” he asked.

Then he stepped out of the room and vanished.

Jazz stared at the now empty wall where the other mech had vanished. He wasn't aware of how many klicks had passed before he finally gave into his emotions and sank to the floor screaming as loudly as he could, trying desperately to get out all of the confusion and anger and sadness that had built up. It seemed like this was probably the only time he could allow himself to just feel his emotions so he took full advantage of this precious time he had been granted.

It wasn’t long though before he slipped into unconsciousness; the gas that had been pumped into the room finally taking its effect. It would knock him out for a while and when he awoke his training would begin.


End file.
